Stanhoe was a railway station which served the village of

Stanhoe Stanhoe is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, 6.4 miles (10.2 km) from the North Sea. It covers an area of and had a population of 196 in 97 households at the 2001 census. The population including Bagthorpe with ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Opened by the

West Norfolk Junction Railway The West Norfolk Junction Railway was a standard gauge eighteen and a half-mile single-track railway running between Wells-next-the-Sea railway station and Heacham in the English county of Norfolk. It opened in 1866 and closed in 1953. At Well ...

in 1866, it closed to passengers in 1952.

History

The construction of the West Norfolk Junction Railway was prompted by the success of the Lynn and Hunstanton Railway which had opened in 1862 to link

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

with the seaside town of

Hunstanton Hunstanton () is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, which had a population of 4,229 at the 2011 Census. It faces west across The Wash, making it one of the few places on the east coast of Great Britain where the sun sets over the sea. Hunstant ...

. The West Norfolk opened in 1866 at the start of a major financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Overend Gurney Bank; the year also saw the outbreak of a "cattle plague" in

North Norfolk North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a ...

which impacted on the cattle receipts on the line. The West Norfolk was absorbed into the Lynn and Hunstanton Railway in 1872 which in turn was acquired by the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

in 1890. The line eventually closed to passengers in 1952, a consequence of rising costs and falling passenger numbers, aggravated by the inconvenient siting of stations. Up to the end of its passenger services, the line was one of the last where one could travel in gas-lit clerestory coaches hauled by Victorian locomotives. A freight service continued to operate until 1963, though it was cut back to Heacham/Burnham Market after the

North Sea flood of 1953 The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm surge that struck the Netherlands, north-west Belgium, England and Scotland. Most sea defences facing the surge were overwhelmed, causing extensive flooding. The storm and flo ...

which badly damaged the section between

Holkham Holkham is a small village and civil parish in north Norfolk, England, which includes a stately home and estate, Holkham Hall, and a beach, Holkham Gap, at the centre of Holkham National Nature Reserve. Geography The parish has an area of and ...

and

Wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...

, damage which

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

judged not worth repairing. Stanhoe station was actually situated more than a mile from the village from which it took its name; its remote rural location was accentuated by the fact that it lay at a height of around 200 ft above sea level. With no goods facilities provided, the station had one of the simplest layouts on the line; a single platform on the up side on which was built a

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

and single storey station building out of Norfolk

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

rather than the usual Great Eastern Carstone. A

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

lay to the west while the line climbed to the west, running parallel with a minor road before crossing it on a level about a mile from Docking.

Present day

The station now forms part of "Station Farm", which has been owned by the same person for the last 40 years; the buildings have been well preserved and in particular the station has retained its station signs and lamps.Joby, R.S., op. cit. p. 148.

References

{{closed stations norfolk Disused railway stations in Norfolk Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1866 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1952 1866 establishments in England

History

Present day

See also

References